What Would a Bumper Sticker Say?

I don’t know what to call myself.

For two decades I have called myself a non-partisan conservative. As Joe over on the Rio Norte Line pointed out a while ago, a conservative is someone who believes in “conserving” the current governmental system. I’m definitely not a conservative by that definition. I like the Constitution. I think the system it founded was a good one, but I don’t think our current governmental system is that system. Maybe if you could disentangle the administrative state, restore states rights and force the three main branches back into their checks-and-balances silos, but that’s not what we have right now, so I’m not a conservative if it means I defend the current system … I don’t.

I don’t know that many of the founders of the modern conservative movement would call themselves conservative by that definition. They believed in reforming the governmental system in an attempt to return it to a more constitutional size and strength. Modern “conservatives” mostly seem to be about expanding our military and advancing the Republican Party.

I believe in the Constitution, but I also agree with Joe that THE founding document of the United States of America is the Declaration of Independence, so where the Constitution has strayed from the Declaration, I cannot support it. So, I guess I’m not really a constitutionalist either.

I am a civil libertarian, but the Libertarian Party platform leaves me cold, so I am not a (Big L) Libertarian, though I have libertarian leanings.

I believe in natural rights, but I also believe that natural rights must be tempered with civility (more on that subject later), so I’m probably not an (little a) anarchist, though I have anarchist leanings.

I believe in voting and being involved in electoral politics, but I hate political parties and only consider third-parties as a compromise position, so I’m a non-partisan.

So what do you call a chimera like that? In the 1770s, I’d have been called a liberal, but that word has been so distorted to mean those who favor big government and associated spending and intrusion that I can’t use that. So ….

If you had to fit it on a bumper sticker, what would you call me?